


All That Avails

by keysmash



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Addiction, Drugs, Episode Related, F/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 03:45:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keysmash/pseuds/keysmash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're always a junkie; there's always some sort of torture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Avails

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 401 and 402, Scylla and Breaking and Entering. The supply closet is stocked by [](http://of-evangeline.livejournal.com/profile)[**of_evangeline**](http://of-evangeline.livejournal.com/).

Sara used to take long baths. She'd liked rough sex, and falling asleep on her back, afterward. She would ignore her paperwork and think about a world where Michael could touch her every day, where he could touch her so casually she'd barely notice it.

She used to love using, too, and she was willing to bet that was one thing she still liked.

.

She was going through the boat's empty drawers while they waited for the tax records to come in when Sucre poked his head over the deck.

"Doc! Doc, you gotta come see this!" Sucre smiled excitedly and then jumped from the steps to the floor. Sara followed him down.

"What is it?"

He kept grinning. "You'll see."

The main room stood empty as they passed through, though a few papers were spread across the conference table. Sara heard voices in other parts of the building, but she didn't see anyone. Sucre led her across the room and down a hallway lined with doors.

"These are all empty," he said as they passed, "except for this." The last door stood open a few inches, and light shone from within. Sara slowed as Sucre stepped to the door, but as she raised an eyebrow, Brad pulled the door open from inside. He stood back, a little wide-eyed, and let her in.

"Maybe we should have told Michael, but I figured you'd know better…"

Sara looked over Brad's shoulder at shelf after shelf of medical supplies. Brad stepped out of her way as she went to the first row: antibacterial soap, sterile gloves, every size of bandage she'd ever seen, gauze, Adaptic, tape, barrier cream.

"No, thanks for getting me," Sara said. She glanced over her shoulder at Brad and Sucre as she moved to the next shelf. Sucre leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, and Brad still stood in the doorway, watching her. She smiled at them and kept going. "Do we have backpacks?" she asked.

"We've got everything," Sucre said.

"Get me some."

Sara went through the next aisle after they left. More gauze, abdominal pads, sterile needles and thread, boxes and boxes of Tegaderm dressings, slings. She started to frown but kept moving, through IV tubing and solutions, scalpels and sterile dressings, and scrubs in her size, shrink-wrapped and stacked. She swallowed hard and checked the next row. She was staring at the shelf of painkillers, at the OTC bottles mixed in with codeine and percocet and, ah, yes, morphine, when Brad brought her four black backpacks. She heard him coming but didn't look away.

"There's a storage room with more, if you want." Brad held them out and Sara took the straps blindly. He didn't let go when she tugged, though, and he held on until she met his eyes. "You need any help?"

Sara took a deep breath, pressed her lips together, and shook her head. "Thanks, though." He let go of the bags and Sara sat three on the floor. She unzipped the fourth and looked inside the roomy main pocket. "I'll make kits we can take out with us. Would you tell Michael, if you see him?"

Brad kept frowning at her, but he nodded after a second. "Sure thing."

Sara left the fourth bag on the floor with the others and went through the room's last aisle. She shook her head at whoever'd organized the place. Antibiotics and allergy medications were tossed with with ribbon gauze, chlorhexidine, and an economy-sized box of condoms. A refrigerator hummed in the corner of the room, and Sara shot it curious glances as she worked her way closer.

Michael's slightly uneven steps were louder than they needed to be in the hallway, and Sara was glad for it. When he pushed the door open, carefully creaking the hinges, Sara poked her head around the end of the shelf and waved at him.

"This is thorough," he said, looking around.

"It's very thorough," Sara said. He glanced down each row as he came to join her. "This is like what I had at Fox River, Michael." She shook her head angrily. "Lots of it is better than I had there, actually. We have five different types of IV solution, enough gauze to mummify someone, fiberglass bandages for casts?" Sara crossed her arms and stared at the fridge. "This is not just basics. Whoever set this up expects us to get hurt."

Michael stepped closer to her but didn't touch her. She wished he would, and she wished he wouldn't, and she tightened her arms around herself and exhaled forcefully. He sighed in response and studied the shelf. He laughed when he got to the condoms, and Sara turned to watch him smile. "They're optimistic about something, at least."

"Scofield, if you think we're going through twenty pounds of condoms before they expire, you've got another thing coming."

He laughed again, bright and surprised, and Sara kissed him on the cheek; suddenly it was easy, again. Michael chased after her mouth. He kissed her once, and then again, before turning to the fridge. "What's in there?" he asked.

"It's the only thing I haven't checked." Sara steadied herself on Michael's arm as she leaned around him and opened the fridge. When the door swung open, and she saw plastic bags of O- blood lining every shelf in neat rows, Sara dropped the handle and his arm like they both burned her.

"They think we'll be hurt bad," she said, and shivered.

.

Gretchen had been a talker. She told Sara about the various ways to beat a person, and Sara had to listen. This is how to hit someone to hurt but not scar, Gretchen would say, and then do it. This is how to injure but not hurt — much —, and she'd hit Sara at a different angle. This is how to hurt but not injure, this is how to scar with the least amount of blood loss — this is how to do all three at once.

Sara thought it all hurt.

She laid Sara on the floor when she was done and kept talking to her, telling her about clotting and shock and other things Sara had known for years, until Sara came back to herself. Once the adrenaline faded, and the pain was an active, thundering presence instead of something distant, something to think about later, Gretchen brought out rubbing alcohol. Sara turned her face away and bit through her lip while Gretchen lectured her on wound care; eventually she passed out, and was happy to go.

.

Sara studied Mahone at first, out of the corner of her eyes. He sweated, and paced, and kept his hands busy. Sara saw that it was as bad for him as it was for her, that his entire body itched for another hit. Mahone kept reminding her of what she tried to forget.

Mahone had held a gun on her the last time they'd been alone, and – maybe she would always be too spooked to trust new men at group, now. But she and Brad had helped each other before.

Brad seemed fine: Brad seemed happier as an escaped felon than she'd ever seen him. He rattled nervously around the complex with the rest of them, but he smiled easily at Sucre, and at Michael. She didn't know when he'd dropped the blustery bravado, but he was better without it. She was glad.

.

Gretchen was there when she came to, rubbing ointment into Sara's back with smooth strokes. The blood and alcohol had pooled under her belly, and her shirt stuck to her skin. Beneath her, the floor was cold.

"I know this must hurt," Gretchen said. Sara focused on the wall, beyond her face. "Would you like something," and Gretchen had kept her voice steady until now, but the calm tone she usually used with LJ fell away as she smiled unpleasantly, "_for the pain_?"

Sara squeezed her eyes closed and Gretchen laughed. "Of course we know," she said. "That's what we do." Sara watched her wipe her bloody hands on a rag, and then Gretchen was waving a syringe in front of her face. "If you do go back to him, you're going back broken. I'm letting you pick how."

And Sara _ached_ for the hit. She'd never been injured enough to deserve the drugs before this; she'd never been this lost before. But she'd never been angry like this, either. The Company had taken almost everything, everyone, from her, and hell if Sara was going to start helping them to hurt her.

"No," Sara rasped. She turned her face away from Gretchen and rested her other cheek on the floor. Her back burned and screamed at the movement. Sara closed her eyes and gasped until she felt less like vomiting. Part of her hoped that Gretchen would stick her anyway, but Sara just breathed, and tried to ignore it.

Gretchen crouched next to her for a while, then laughed quietly and stood. She pulled Sara's remaining shoe off and tossed it at her head. Sara winced as it hit. "No more stunts like that," Gretchen said. Her heels clicked as she left the room.

Sara pushed the pain away and turned her face to watch Gretchen leave. There was no lock on the door, and no guard. Sara supposed that the jungle, and her injuries, were thought to be guard enough.

She listened to Gretchen's car start up and pull away, then forced herself to her bare feet, and outside.

.

Sara loaded the backpacks — gauze and bandages, needles and thread and gloves — and the vials on the shelf sang to her the entire time.

She gave the men a run-down on first-aid in the main room. They'd done pretty well on their own, but she wanted better for them all. Brad stacked the bags by the cars, and then the discussion picked up where she'd interrupted. Glenn talked about data, Lincoln about security, Mahone about timing, and Sara slipped away from the table.

She passed a bathroom and a shining industrial kitchen before she found the storage room Brad had mentioned. She stepped inside and glanced around quickly. Racks of clothes and shoes lined one wall, and weapons another. Survival equipment, canned food, office supplies — Sara didn't pay much attention to any of it. She found the bags hanging in a corner, snatched one up, and took it back to the medical closet. Michael tried to catch her gaze as she walked through the conference room, and Sara shot him a tight smile without really meeting his eyes.

The crook of her elbow itched; she had to work quickly.

She stood in front of the painkillers with her jaw clenched, then swept the drugs into the bag as quickly as she could. The plastic bottles holding pills weren't anything special, but the vials were smooth and familiar under her fingers. Sara considered putting on gloves, so she wouldn't have to touch the glass, but two more handfuls and then she was done, and she zipped the bag and dropped it. The bottles clinked against each other as they hit the floor, and Sara left the room to push down the urge to make sure nothing was broken, to make sure it was all good.

She knew it would all be good.

.

Sara sat sideways in her seat in Bruce's plane, on the way home. He'd wanted to take her to a doctor in Panama, but she insisted that they leave, now, _now_. Once they were in the air, she pulled off her stolen blouse to keep the fabric from sticking to her wounds. She throbbed and shook all the way back. She knew that Bruce had a well-stocked first-aid kit on board, but she didn't ask for anything, and he didn't offer.

Sara had a fever when they got to Chicago. She crawled topless into Bruce's guest bed and let his doctor clean and dress her back. Bruce gave her tylenol and soup. He turned the heat up so she didn't need to get under the covers.

Every thought made her want to cry. Every part of her body hurt. She didn't know where Michael was, what was happening to him. She wanted him with her, and she wanted the pain to stop.

She couldn't have one, and she wouldn't give herself the other. She closed her eyes instead.

.

Sara was able to go back to work with the drugs zipped away. Their plans came together slowly at first, but as Michael's ideas clicked into place, the work sped. The group wasn't moving together as smoothly as they could, but Sara thought that was just a matter of time.

She sat far from Mahone, on the same side of the table, so she didn't have to watch him.

When they took a break for lunch, Sara drew Michael away from the crowd. She crossed her arms around herself and held tightly to her elbows as they went to the medical storage. She stayed in the doorway and nodded towards the backpack on the floor. Michael raised an eyebrow at her.

"I need you to put that somewhere for me," Sara said. She didn't move while Michael crossed to the bag. He unzipped it, looked inside, and then glanced up quickly at her. Sara stared at the wall above his head instead of meeting his gaze. "We need to have it, but I can't know where it is right now."

"Alright." Michael closed it and hooked one strap over his shoulder. "Should I do it now?"

"Please." Sara clenched her teeth and closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and found a smile for Michael. "I'm gonna — go outside for a while, I think."

"Sure." Michael smiled back. Sara turned and hurried down the hallway, keeping herself away from the bag. She sat on the dock and tried not to think, and tried not to think.

.

It'll always be there, they told her in recovery. You'll always want it.

Then how am I going to make it without? she'd asked.

One day at a time, said her sponsor. Sara wanted to scream.

She learned, instead. She learned how to talk herself down, how to ask for help, how to keep herself from temptation. It got better, and some days, it barely crossed her mind, but it never did go away. If she thought about using, then she missed using.

It wasn't as bad now as it had been before — here, with Michael, was infinitely better than being lost and bleeding in a foreign country — but the need was still there.

She kept as busy as she could, immediately. She rode on adrenaline and stress; she let Michael fill her veins. The need, the _need_, to use still tugged at her sleeve, but she tried to ignore it, and she did not scream.

.

"My name is Sara," she said slowly, easy familiar words, "and I'm an addict."

She looked up, from her clenched hands, across the desk at Brad. She'd stolen him away from the planning and they'd claimed a workstation in the corner. He smiled at her and nodded, and his single face was more comfort than a circle full of strangers.

"Hi, Sara," he said, and so she went on.


End file.
